If David Trimble thinks the Republic of Ireland is such a boring little mono-cultural society, perhaps he should examine more closely some of the polarities of values that have emerged in the wake of the recent abortion referendum.

Consider, for example, the stark differences of outcome as exemplified by the contrasting constituencies of Dun Laoghaire and Donegal. In Dun Laoghaire, the No vote was getting on for 70pc on a 52pc turnout, while in Donegal North-East the Yes vote was over 70pc on a 33pc turnout. The values represented by Dun Laoghaire and Donegal are at polar opposites.

This profile has broadly repeated itself in all the 'culture wars' referenda. Rural Ireland, on the whole, votes for traditional values of family, faith, fatherland and farm. Urban Ireland, on the whole, votes for secularism, individualism, modernism and personal choice. Indeed, the partition of Ireland as between these values is probably as great as any political border.

Such a profile would be mirrored in referenduma in Northern Ireland on such issues as divorce and abortion if the Northern state went in for such plebiscites. Rural Ulster, Catholic and Protestant, would cleave to traditional morality, Wasn't there a famous occasion in Co Tyrone when a town council, split fifty-fifty between unionists and nationalists, voted in total unity on the issue of liberalising the laws on homosexuality? (Rev. Ian Paisley's Save Ulster From Sodomy campaign was quite untouched by sectarianism.)

Urban and rural values always have been at odds Karl Marx pointed that out and are particularly marked in Ireland for a number of historical reasons. Dublin ever was the English Pale and always did share more cultural norms with cities such as Bristol and Liverpool than with many other parts of Ireland. (Queen Victoria liked to note in her diaries what a rapturous welcome she always received in Dublin, landing in such splendour in Kingstown, now Dun Laoghaire.)

Genetic research on Dubliners has indicated that they share a higher percentage of collective DNA with the English than with the rural Irish. This also emerges in modern market research, where British manufacturers will often test new products in Dublin (along with Bristol, Newcastle and Manchester): Dublin consumer response is often a good indicator of how a product will play in the British market as a whole.

In that sense, it is logical that Dublin voters particularly those in the more affluent areas of south Dublin will tend to have similar values to those in cities across the water. And in any case, on moral issues city dwellers tend to a more individualistic and secularised approach.

Rural Ireland, particularly along the west coast, is rooted in a completely different mindset. In the abortion referendums the counties which have voted most affirmatively pro-life were those most seriously affected and depleted by the famines of the 19th century, such as Mayo, Leitrim and Donegal. For a hundred years after the 1847 Great Famine the great fear in many parts of rural Ireland was the fear of depopulation.

I remember sitting in a bar in West Cork watching Gay Byrne conduct a discussion on The Late Late Show about liberalising the law pertaining to condom sales in Ireland a subject with which I had had some historic association myself. In the 1980s, there were differences of opinion on the policy of pharmacy sales of the item. But the discussion in the West Cork bar was not about means of birth control: it was about the fear that the local school might close down for want of children or that there would not be enough lads to form a football team.

The contrast between the cool discussions in Dublin 4 about preventing pregnancies and the old anxiety about depopulation in this corner of rural Ireland was strangely ironic.

Agricultural societies are, almost without exception, pro-natalist. In city life, an extra child in the family was often described as another mouth to feed. In country life, an extra child was called another pair of hands. Children in farm families were useful, and started helping around the farm from about the age of three (as shown in Arensberg and Kimball's classic anthropological study of Irish rural life just recently re-issued) whereas children in city life could be a burden until they were financially self-supporting.

In agricultural terms, sterility is regarded as failure. The cow that does not calf, the harvest that does not grow, the ground that does not yield its fruits this is deeply negative. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb that elegiac phrase that occurs in the Hail Mary, repeated and repeated throughout the cycles of the Rosary is an entirely natural idea to the agricultural mind. An abortion, in agricultural terms, is a miscarriage when the mare loses the foal and the cow's pregnancy fails: this is bad, and costs money too.

City life, by contrast, is all about suppressing and controlling nature: tarmac replaces grass: pet animals are routinely sterilised and walked on leads: lovely stretches of trees are hacked down to widen roads The fertility of nature is a curse which has to be managed and streamlined and, if possible, eliminated.

As between Dublin and Donegal there is, then, this historic perspective on population. Dublin has too much it is far too populous for the size of the country of which it is the capital while Donegal for a long time has had too little. Dublin is spoiled for choices, Donegal deprived of necessary infrastructures it is disgraceful that Donegal has no railway service and only a very small airport. Catholic values remain tenacious in Donegal, very probably sharpened by the stronger nationalist traditions and the presence of a Gaeltacht area, which usually adds a note of stubborn resistant to perceived Anglicisation.

While the Dublin media is generally full of bad news about the Catholic church gleeful reporting about falling Mass attendance or clerical scandals the grass-roots press in rural Ireland tends to reflect the cycle of funerals, novenas, blessings, stations, pilgrimages, holy wells, cults of local saints and bishops' visitations which are a natural part of everyday Irish country life. The faith is simply the vin du pays, and when there is a terrible tragedy such as the recent drowning of a much-loved Donegal schoolboy the local priest still tends to play the role of community leader. These deep-rooted values still underpin the culture, and will emerge in referendums touching on moral dilemmas.

Which would we rather have the values of Dun Laoghaire or Donegal? In a diverse society, it is a healthy thing to have both. And the national media should reflect both it is a source of constant irritation outside of Dublin than Dublin values are so complacently dominant. Notice that if Dublin is playing in an all-Ireland final, the whole of the rest of the country is united against the Dubs.

Some analysts would predict the day will come when Donegal will assume the values of Dublin because the communications revolution is tending to make everywhere more similar. But rural Ireland has proved to be remarkably resistant to colonisation by the Pale, and remarkably tenacious in adhering to faith, fatherland and family in however muted or elliptical a form.

- Mary Kenny